West Midlands police arrested three men on 22 October for the unlicensed supply of labour to work in several agricultural tasks including harvesting spring onions.

The arrests came just two days after a group of 50 Romanian workers including children, were found inappropriately equipped also harvesting spring onions at a different location in the Vale of Evesham.

These three arrests took place in the Oldbury area in a joint operation between the Gangmasters Licensing Authority and the police involving 30 officers. The arrested men are now on bail following the extensive search of several properties.

Spring onion prices have been very strong on wholesale markets this week at 650p for 20s. One marketer told freshinfo: “Some growers are really struggling to find labour. There are just fewer people about as a lot of the eastern Europeans that came over for the summer have gone home. The UK crop is running later than usual too and it is doing fairly well to be pushing into the last fortnight.”

Frosts not clearing until about 10 am some mornings have been causing quality problems, which have been compounded by recent wet weather and product is lodging in the ground and stems are becoming slimy.

“It is getting to the point where it is almost more economical to import now, what with labour and quality problems,” said the marketer.

Topics